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Matt Dovey

9:15pm, 23rd August 2016

Anatomy of a Golden Pen: Conflict

It took me an embarassingly long time to work this out: conflict is everything.

Do you know what happened to the first story I wrote once I worked it out? When I first focused on deliberately working it into every paragraph? It won WotF.

If you only ever take one piece of advice from me, take this: you need more conflict.

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TAGS: Anatomy of a Golden Pen, wotf32


8:40pm, 2nd August 2016

Podcast: Squalor and Sympathy

Squalor and Sympathy, by Adrian Massaro, Golden Brush winner 2016Happy days! My first ever audio production is available today as PodCastle episode 427, brilliantly narrated by Louise Ratcliffe with a proper Lancashire accent.

If you're here from PodCastle, then firstly--hi! Thank you for remembering to look me up after you finished listening. That's quite something, and it means a lot. The artwork mentioned in the show notes is on the right, by the incredibly talented Adrian Massaro. It honestly gave me shivers the first time I saw it.

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TAGS: podcast, wotf32


5:00pm, 23rd May 2016

Anatomy of a Golden Pen: Research

Two of the young spinners in Catawba Cotton Mills. Newton, N.C., 1908; image in the public domainBeing a writer, I'm full of self-importance and arrogantly believe everyone wants to read pages and pages of nonsense from me. As such, I'm going to start a series about my Golden Pen story from Writers of the Future volume 32, Squalor & Sympathy, dissecting it from various angles.

First up: all the historical accuracies and references in the story.

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TAGS: Anatomy of a Golden Pen, wotf32


4:26pm, 20th May 2016

Living the Dream: a WotF32 recap

Kobo Writing Life very kindly asked me to pen a guest post covering my experiences of the Writers of the Future week, and being me, I ended up writing 3000 words, so it had to be split in two. Both parts are up now: Part One and Part Two.

You can read the opening to my Golden Pen winning story, Squalor & Sympathy, and then trundle over to Writers of the Future to buy the anthology from your venue of choice.

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TAGS: wotf32


8:44pm, 26th April 2016

#WotF32 Giveaway

Signed copy of Writers of the Future 32Let's do a #WotF32 giveaway.

All you have to do is sign up for my newsletter in the next week--between now and launch day, May 3rd 2016--and I'll pick a name to get a signed copy on launch day. Anywhere in the world. That easy--I just want your email address, and I don't even ask you to type it twice to check your spelling. I actually couldn't make it easier.

For reference, I have had that mailing list for two months and not sent a damn thing out on it. This isn't a lot of spam you're signing up for.

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TAGS: wotf32


5:00pm, 20th April 2016

WotF Golden Pen winner 2016

So this happened.

Not only that, but my illustrator, Adrian Massaro, won the Golden Brush award--the first time in contest history that one story has won both awards.

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TAGS: award, news, wotf32


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About

Matt Dovey is a writer of short speculative fiction. He is very tall, very British, and probably drinking a cup of tea right now. His surname rhymes with “Dopey”, but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. More →

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You're not a person, they say, circling. You're one of Them. From the other side.

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I never pass through Chalk-Newton without turning to regard the neighbouring upland, at a point where a lane crosses the lone straight highway dividing this from the next parish; a sight which does not fail to recall the event that once happened there; and, though it may seem superfluous, at this date, to disinter more memories of village history, the whispers of that spot may claim to be preserved.

The Grave by the Handpost by Thomas Hardy
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My mother always said, "People think winter is death. But they're wrong. Winter is potential." Her gift, and now mine, is this: to see potential. To turn life's misfortunes to what goodness I can.

Winter Witch